


The Last

by strikeyourcolors



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Killing Joke (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Emotional, Gen, Hospitals, Injury, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Light Angst, Medical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 20:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13842291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikeyourcolors/pseuds/strikeyourcolors
Summary: While scoping out the city for his return, Jason is waylaid by an unfortunate circumstance. He sits a vigil by the side of an old friend, the first Batgirl, injured at the hands of the same man who killed him. He should have been the last person the Joker ever hurt.





	The Last

**Author's Note:**

> This fudges timelines. I realize that, right off. Some comics have Barbara already in a wheelchair at Jason's funeral, others have her walking, and I just slid it a little bit further that Barbara is shot a couple of years after Jason's death. It probably follows the New 52 more closely, though there are some mixed in elements. 
> 
> Ultimately I don't think Jason was this coherent at this point in time, but I enjoy the idea of the friendship the two had. That's it. There's my only motivation.

He's not sure how he heard. Police scanners, maybe. He's only back in Gotham for a visit, only to lay frame work, but having his ear to the ground for a home invasion at the Commissioner's place? It's somehow only natural that he looks for the ensuing 911 call. A woman's thready voice, trembling and desperate on the other end. "Oh Jesus," She whispers. "Barbara? Can you hear me?" A soft groan in the background and Jason isn't sure if he's horrified at the name or relieved at the response to it. "She's been shot in the stomach," The woman's voice tells the operator. "There's so much blood." and if Jason were the 911 operator he would be telling her that gut shots will do that to you.

When the call recording ends, he wonders who has such a grudge against the Commissioner or against Barbara herself. She's hung up the cape and did so long enough ago that he doubts it's retribution for being Batgirl. When Jason had first heard she gave the life up he was half glad he wouldn't have to face her to get at Bruce. The other half of him remembered how graceful she'd been, how she'd helped him perfect the roundhouse kick to the jaw, and he regretted that no one else would get to see it. He has a moment to reflect on Batgirl. On the distantly remembered sweep of her cape as she jumped off a building ahead of him and the way she seemed to work so easily with Batman and yet not be owned by him the way Robin was. 

Then he hears that a playing card was found on the floor near her and that the Bat believes it was Joker. Everything drowns under the burning green haze of rage and Lazarus magic. _If Bruce had killed him,_ Jason thinks. _This wouldn't have happened._ It thrums through his veins with his blood. He wants to track Bruce down, wants to scream at him, wants to show him what his antiquated morals have brought them. Ruin and destruction. More than that there's a sinking feeling. A fear for Barbara and for her father. _I should have been the last._ And Jason believes it with every fiber of his being. If he had been the last then maybe he would have been able to stay dead and in peace. 

Talia had counseled patience. She had urged him to wait and get the lay of the land. She had told him Gotham was different than how he remembered it but, of course, it's the same. Good people get hurt and Batman punishes the villains and they are out on the street hurting people all over again. He has to do something. He can't remain in the run down little motel room on Gotham's East side, knowing what happened. His contacts are buzzing with what happened anyway; it's not like he could escape the chatter if he wanted to. He breaks into a few computer systems, knowing Talia's watching everything he's doing but it's entirely reasonable he'd want to know about this in his quest for revenge. She has no reason to think he might care on a deeper level, or be personally attached. Jason's not certain he even if. He's not certain if it frightens him, either. 

It's unnerving how little security there is when he finally makes it to the hospital. With the police commissioner kidnapped and his daughter shot in the doorway of her own home, you would think the cops would step it up a notch. Her name isn't in the hospital's records but there's only one woman brought in with a gunshot wound causing spinal damage. She has two armed police officers outside her door. One of them is supposed to be inside, but has been shirking that duty. They've abandoned her in her hour of need. 

Still, he can be grateful for that because it allows him to slip into the window. He finds the safety bar that keeps the window from opening more than a foot conveniently already broken; the Bat's been here. And he confidently, arrogantly, left the window as a security risk believing no one else would scale the side of the hospital to attack Barbara Gordon again. 

Jason slips inside. It's a nice room. Fake nice, the way hospitals trying to portray that it's where you want to be instead of where you're forced to be, are. The room is private, and large enough to feel almost empty. A chair and a small table on one side where there is plenty of space for another bed, if necessary. And on the other...

He's avoided looking at it. He can hear the steady beeping of a heart monitor and the hum of the system regulating the drips of drugs into her veins. There's no rhythmic whoosh of the ventilator and he's relieved and grateful; she's been weaned off it after surgery, then. Her chances are getting better and better for her survival. Jason edges closer, boots silent on the disinfected linoleum floor. A chair has also been pulled beside; at least someone who cared about her had sat a vigil even if she's alone now. It is two in the morning, Jason reminds himself. It's far past visiting hours and he shouldn't see an abandoned Robin in an injured former Batgirl; Barbara's always been loved. 

He looks at the door and plots an escape route. He notices the absence of flowers or balloons or personal articles, but she's only been here a little over a day. It hardly means anything. At last there's nowhere to look but at her. He thinks it was a stupid idea to come here, but as soon as he'd heard that the Commissioner was safe, he'd wanted to make sure that Barbara was as well. 

She's pale as death. Her fair skin is ashen and her lips have a purplish tone to them that disturbs him to no end. All that red hair is bundled up and put into a net and Jason can't even understand why except it keeps it out of the way. The hospital gown she's wearing is pink. It makes her look even worse than if she was surrounded only by the white sheets. 

But it's better than she was. He knows, too, that she was found without a stitch of clothing on her body. He's read her medical file as it stands so far and he'd been disgustingly relieved to know there was no evidence of rape. The Joker has taken enough from her. The spinal damage isn't easily repaired. Barbara won't walk again. 

Jason looks at the long shape of her legs beneath her blankets. He'd spent admittedly way too much time as Robin looking at them. Pretty and shapely and lengthy. Ballerina legs. He'd been teased for looking at her ass but actually his gaze had been on her thighs. 

They're useless to her now. She'll never walk. She'll never stride across a rooftop with a confident grace before she leaps and takes to the sky. Another thing the Joker's taken. Another thing he hasn't been punished for and Jason is adding this sin to the tally for when he takes back control. 

He checks the chart at the end of her bed again, just to be certain he hasn't missed anything. She's being given blood and painkillers. She's not heavily sedated as they've found that seems to make her react badly. She has antibiotics and a cool pack on her belly and back in the vain hope that, just maybe, they might save some of the swelling spinal tissue. She was awake and aware when they brought her in and on and off throughout and Jason isn't sure if it's better she's been involved in the decisions made about her own body or if it's horrifying to be trapped in a broken, desperate shell. 

He touches her face. It's a hesitant touch, the brush of gloved fingertips against her cheek as though to reassure himself she's real. He doesn't even intend the physical contact but finds he can't resist. She stirs. Her lips move for a moment before her actual voice comes out. "Daddy?" Her eyes don't open. It's not a question of who he is so much as a question of where and Jason is both admiring and depressed. Barbara's first thought is for the safety of someone else. She doesn't deserve this. 

"He's safe," Jason offers, because he can't say nothing in the face of such raw and naked need. "Your dad's safe," He repeats even though he knows someone has told her this before. He's pretty sure the Commissioner has even stopped by, refusing to give his statement or anything else until he verified with his own eyes that Barbara was alive. He'd want the reassurance too, if he had a dad like Jim Gordon. Jim had always been kind to him, whether as Bruce Wayne's new foster child or as Batman's sidekick. He's not sure how he knows that Jim went to his funeral, but he does. A private service, graveside, only four souls in attendance. One of those souls is lying in this bed. 

Barbara's eyelids start to flutter open before he can escape. Her fingers are cool against his hand. "Dick?" She slurs with her eyes half open and Jason freezes in place. This has always been their issue. Always Dick Grayson standing between him and a healthy relationship with anyone. Those words Barbara spat at him the first night they'd been left alone come roaring back. _You will never be Dick Grayson._ and how ashamed he'd felt. How small and embarrassed because he'd, foolishly, thought that Barbara might like him. 

He remembers too the care she'd taken with him as Robin the few times they'd gone out together. Of the photos he'd been shown of his own funeral he remembers the girl curled up in the seat of her father's sedan, crying like the world was ending. He'll never forgive her for those words, not like this, but he can dismiss them for tonight. She's not part of the vengeance he wants to reap. 

Of course he makes excuses for her. Her eyes are half open. She doesn't have glasses on or contacts in and even if she did. All she sees is dark hair and a domino mask. 

It's salt in the wound that Dick Grayson hasn't been by to even check on her. 

"Try again, Barbie-girl,” Jason suggests and forces his tone to be light. He shouldn't. He should just turn around and walk away. But the nickname falls easily from her lips, as does the teasing. He doesn't know why. It's not like he ever wants it to but there's something about her. There always has been. Batgirls and Robins, maybe. 

Her fingers twitch. She starts to reach, and he realizes only after his hand flinches for the pistol by his side that she's only after her glasses on the table nearby. He'd almost pulled a gun on a near-coma patient who had been recently shot. It's not his finest moment. She says nothing, but there's a sharp exhalation of breath. The heart monitor shoots up as she struggles. It hurts. It hurts her physically and Jason can't stand it. “Hey,” He says, touching her shoulder lightly. “Hey, I'll get them.” _Stupid_ , he curses himself. _Stupid for coming. Stupid for staying. Stupid for helping her._ But he reaches over, finding the plastic frames between his fingers and helping her get them onto her face. 

She stares at him. “I know,” Jason says, feeling unnerved by those large, watchful eyes even bruised and glassy as they are. “You don't want to be called Barbie and you especially don't want me tacking girl on the end of it. Gosh, BG, you're such a prude. Who doesn't like a little techno and jokes about plastic?” At least, he thinks that's what she had scolded him on all those years ago. The annoying kid brother trying to impress the girlfriend. Thinking he was entirely too smart while actually being too clever for his years and his own good. 

Her fingers spasm again and he's about to draw back, convinced she's going for the call button to ring a nurse and he needs to get the hell out of here before she does. But they fasten on him, weak, barely a touch at all. “Jason,” She whispers. “Oh my God. Jason.” She starts to cry. Those gorgeous eyes that haunt him in his waking, more clear moments start to fill with tears. He wasn't expecting this. But he keeps pushing. Never knowing when to retreat has always been a problem of his and this isn't any different. He wonders why a girl in a hospital bed is somehow keeps him rooted more firmly and more afraid than a thug with a gun would.

“Hey,” He protests. He can't fix this because he doesn't know why she's crying. Fear? Pain? “None of that, now. I'll keep to BG or Babs, if you want. Barbara is really just too much to say. Too many syllables.” 

But she seems to almost shake her head. She's been in a cervical brace. He's impressed she can move her head at all. “It's...you. Isn't it? You're dead.” There's another pause as she takes in a shuddering breath. “Jason.” She repeats his name like a prayer. Like a vain hope everything will be alright. 

“Yeah,” He confirms. “It's me.” But after that he doesn't know what to say. He shouldn't have even said so much. Talia won't be happy if she finds out. Jason just has to make sure she won't. That the eyes she has in Gotham don't report him sitting by one girl's bedside and holding her hands. He's here to lay a frame on which to build his revenge. He's here to get his head slightly more together before he goes after the big dogs. He's decidedly not here to visit an old crush who had a rough night. 

A rough night like he had a rough day. Both of them bleeding out on the floor and a chalk-faced clown standing above them. Both of them forever robbed of something by him. And Bruce? Not doing a damn thing to make sure it doesn't happen again. 

It's happened again, Jason knows. He should have been the last and here lies proof that he was not. She won't be either. 

Barbara's breaths are ragged. The corners of her eyes have overflowed and Jason looks for tissues, for something to hand her to wipe them away. Her fingers are vise grips on his wrist, her blunt nails digging in with enough force she might bruise a normal person. “I'm not here to take your soul or anything,” Jason jokes because the first joke to come to mind is that he's here to kill her and that's too macabre even for him. “And I didn't bring you flowers or balloons or anything.” Empty-handed and inadequate as always.   
But she watches him like he's offered her something precious. Like he meant something to her. Like even as pale and exhausted and ill as she looked, like he was more important. She's alive. Haggard and paralyzed with a devastatingly long road ahead of her, but she'll live. If anyone can do it, it's Babs. 

Jason can't say he would be the same. He doesn't remember a lot of surviving on the streets of Gotham the second time, but if he was going to be that weak permanently he would have hoped someone might put him out of his misery. 

Not her, though. He'll never let her get hurt like this again. No one else. 

“Why?” She says at last, so softly he has to question for a moment if she actually vocalized it. She shifts her face, rubbing the dampness of her face against the pillow under her. “Why, then?”

It's a good question. Jason's not even sure he knows the answer. He lets his fingers brush along a strand of her hair. It had always been so soft. So perfect, even under that cowl and he didn't know how she managed it. It's dirty now. A little crunchy with dried blood that hasn't been washed out completely. He wonders if her hair was a teenage fantasy of his or if things have changed that much in the time she's been gone. “Just to see you,” He replies. That's why he's here in this room, if not why he's back in Gotham. That's all she needs to know. “Go back to sleep, Babsy. I'll keep watch for you.”

“We're going to talk.” The pads of her fingers are tracing his hand, every tendon and every scar. “Later. Have...so much.” 

Jason is half enthralled and half terrified. But whether it's a new dose of medication in her veins or simply the fact her body is exhausted, Babs is fading fast. “I know,” He reassures her. There is so much. So much she'll never be able to touch. So much he'll never be able to say. But he doesn't say they really will talk. He doesn't want to lie to her. “Go to sleep.”

He waits until she relaxes before he takes off her glasses and replaces them on her bedside table. Her breathing is still staggered; she's not deeply asleep but she's not conscious either. Jason knows he's made a misstep in coming here and yet he's glad he did. With any luck, she wasn't lucid enough to remember. If she does, he hopes she'll think she dreamed it. Certainly she'll have a lot more to do than chase the ghost of a long ago dead Robin. 

He holds her hand the rest of the night. He's gone before dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me a review, leave a comment, or hit me up [here](http://strikeyourcolors.tumblr.com/ask) if there's something you'd like to see! I welcome prompts.


End file.
